Beverly Hills Cop actor John Ashton dead at 76

John Ashton, the veteran character actor who memorably played the gruff but lovable police detective John Taggart in the Beverly Hills Cop films, has died. He was 76.

Ashton died on Thursday in Fort Collins, Colorado, his family announced in a statement released by Ashton’s manager, Alan Somers, on Sunday. No cause of death was immediately available.

In a career that spanned more than 50 years, Ashton was a regular face across television series and films, including Midnight Run, Little Big League and Gone Baby Gone.

But in the Beverly Hills Cop films, Ashton played an essential part of an indelible trio. Though Eddie Murphy’s Axel Foley, a Detroit detective following a case in Los Angeles, was the lead, the two local detectives – Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and Ashton’s Taggart – were Axel’s sometimes reluctant, sometimes eager collaborators.

Of the three, Taggart — “Sarge” to Billy — was the more fearful, by-the-book detective. But he would regularly be coaxed into Axel’s plans. Ashton co-starred in the first two films, beginning with the 1984 original, and returned for the the Netflix reboot, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, released earlier this year.

Ashton played a more unscrupulous character in Martin Brest’s 1988 buddy comedy Midnight Run. He was the rival bounty hunter also pursuing Charles Grodin’s wanted accountant in The Duke while he is in the custody of Robert De Niro’s Jack Walsh.